Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Homemade Yogurt

I love a good yogurt, so naturally I decided I wanted to make some of my own. I've seen numerous recipes floating around about how to make yogurt using your crockpot, but I could never work up the courage to try making it that way. I guess I know too much microbiology....

My in-laws gave Frog Prince and I a EuroCuisine Yogurt Maker for Christmas last year, and we've been putting it to good use. I love the individual-sized yogurt containers to make the yogurt and I also love that they are glass -- which means I can sterilize them well in the dishwasher before making the yogurt, and I don't have to worry about incubating plastic.

The result is a delicious, creamy yogurt after 9-10 hours of incubation!

We've used the yogurt more recently to make a wonderful frozen yogurt -- can't wait to share that recipe with you too.

Homemade Yogurt - From EuroCusine

42 oz. 1% milk*
6-8 oz. Greek Yogurt {plain}

Begin by pouring the milk into a clean and dry saucepan. Heat the milk over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture reaches 180 degrees. This is the boiling point for milk, so let it boil (allowing the milk to climb the sides of the pan a bit) for about 1 minute; again, stirring constantly.

Remove the saucepan from the head and allow the milk to cool down to 110 degrees. To hasten the process, I carefully place the warm saucepan into a cold bowl of water/ice. I allow it to sit for ~5 minutes, replenish the cold water/ice mix and repeat until the milk reaches 110 degrees.

Combine half of the Greek yogurt with ~1/2 C lukewarm milk and stir until yogurt is dissolved in milk. Then, add the rest of the yogurt and mix well.

Stir the milk/yogurt mixture back into the rest of the milk in the saucepan, and stir until well combined. At this point, I transfer all the milk to a large glass measuring cup or, leave it in the sauce pan -- whichever is easier for pouring.

Carefully pour the milk mixture into the 7 glass jars.

Place the jars (without lids) into the yogurt maker. Cover the yogurt maker; turn it on and set the timer for ~11 hours (up to 12-13 hours if you're using skim milk).

Allow the yogurt cultures to incubate and then when they are done, cover and refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving.

*I've made batches of yogurt using skim and 1%; I personally like the texture better with 1% milk, but the skim milk worked just fine. Use what you would prefer!

Making homemade yogurt works great for our family! Have you tried it? Do you have a favorite recipe? Tell me about it in the comments (include a link, if you'd like)!

22 comments:

We recently got this same yogurt maker and I love it. I didn't want to bother with cooking the milk so I just microwave it straight from the fridge for 3 minutes or so until it's warm but not hot. Then I mix it with the yogurt as described and let it go and it has turned out perfect every time so far. Today is my first time using previously made yogurt as a starter instead of store bought so we'll see.

Hi! It's the first time I see a yogurt maker machine. It's good to know that. I always do it in my crockpot and it's very satisfying to see it ready. I save a lot of money in organic yogurt. From a 64 oz. milk carton I get 80 oz. of yogurt! Before I paid $3.99 ($0.12 per oz.) for 32 oz of organic yogurt not I only pay $1.60 ($0.04 per oz). That's a savings of $2.39 You can check my recipe here:

How funny! I just tried making my own yogurt the other day, without the help of my mom's vintage Salton, and succeeded! We love to use it in biscuits and waffles, dips and parfaits, or really any recipe that calls for buttermilk.

I am not sure I have ever posted but I have been a follower for a long time:) Love your blog!!

I have been making yogurt for about 4 months now and love it!! I got a yolife yogurt maker because you could put your own jars in it. I wanted to make BIG batches since I have all boys in this house. All the big yogurt makers were plastic and I just didn't like that. I am able to get 3 quart size mason jars in at a time and make yogurt at least twice a week. I usually make at least one or two of those into sour cream because we love mexican food and there for love our sour cream. I usually only make vanilla and plain yogurt because we like to add frozen berries to ours :)

I really enjoy the EuroCuisine; I know Lynn from Lynn's Kitchen Adventure also has one and uses it regularly. My yogurt keeps about 2 weeks; but it usually doesn't last that long. I've found a consistency that we like and I think it closely resembles that of a Greek Yogurt; since I use that as the starter that works well. I've been experimenting with adding powdered milk to the yogurt to see how that changes the consistency... seems to thicken it up a bit too.

I've used my own yogurt as a started for one subsequent batch. The EuroCuisine directions recommend not to use it more than one time, so I haven't tried it yet.

And, they also don't recommend using expired milk. I've made yogurt with milk that was past it's "sell by" date, but was still good for consuming. Hope that helps.

Not sure if you knew this already, but you can just leave the warm milk in the saucepan (after you've let it cool a bit and mixed it with the starter yogurt). Just warm up your oven a bit (like 150-175 degrees) and let the yogurt sit in there, covered, for about 12 hours (this is using whole milk). This is essentially what the incubator does.

Then uncover and refrigerate for ~3 days. I can't speak for how skim/1% works, though. I also lay a layer of paper towels on top of the yogurt while in the fridge to absorb moisture and make it thicker. Use Bounty, so there's no ripping or paper towels stuck in your yogurt!

I have recently started making my own yogurt. I don't have to cook the milk because I purchase milk from the store. I also add milk powder to the mixture so that it is a little thicker. My husband loves Cherry Yogurt so I add some homemade cherry preserves to his yogurt. He loves it!

Can you or anybody share a good fruity yogurt recipe? I have the same yogurt maker as you and I just made one recipe from the book that came with it but I think my milk has curdled with the peach so I hardly doubt I will wake up tomorrow morning to yogurt :-) Making plain yogurt though is super easy and super yummy and quite thick, almost like greek yogurt. I am using whole milk.

1) Fruit on the top. Don't fill the yogurt container fully and when done, add you favorite fruit, jam or jelly. Store in the fridge.

But, my personal favorite is ....

2) Make yogurt and store it pain. Serve with berry sauce (http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2009/07/berry-sauce.html) and honey, or raspberry rhubarb sauce & honey (http://joyinmykitchen.blogspot.com/2012/05/raspberry-rhubarb-preserve.html). I just simply mix it in when I eat it.

When cooking, please make sure to follow kitchen hygiene and safety -- cook meat until internal temperature is at safe levels, always check labels for allergens, and use caution in the kitchen -- I love sharing recipes, but I am not liable for damages done as a result of trying these recipes.